Stories from San Junipero
by oneartsugar
Summary: This is a mash-up AU story about PLL characters in Black Mirror's San Junipero. This is a multiple chapter story. Check the author's note for more info. Heaven is a place on Earth via the 80's. There maybe mature content and maybe murder in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**  
Hello this story came about due to my extreme love and fascination with the Black Mirror episode of San Junipero and PLL characters and Paige McCullers in general. It may seem like you are starting in the middle of something and to an extent you are. I have plans to add much more to this story to fill in the gaps BUT the premise for this is that Paige and the Liars are in San Junipero and those of you who know what that is will understand there are certain implications with that. I won't go into those details here, but please know that I am doing a certain amount of world building as the 1hr episode didn't elaborate on details needed to write a fully realized world. I have questions like: Are there other towns like San Junipero? Can inhabitants move from town to town? Do they have control over what they are wearing, look like and feel (ala pain sliders from the episode) OR is that all preset in the outside world? And more that I hope to answer for myself and maybe add onto via this story. BUT I am also mixing the world of PLL and the Liar's story. So for the purpose of this I will say that everything before the Flash Forward has taken place & maybe a bit more hinted at or suggested in the flash forward BUT this takes place as if we haven't done the flash forward and clearly due to the nature of the San Junipero storyline in the future. There may be mature content and murders in later chapters. This is of course an AU.

Sadly, I don't think Kelly and Yorkie (whom I ADORE and sort of wanna pair her with Paige in a one off) will be making an appearance though we might mention them or see them in the back ground.

 **Writing & Updating Note:**  
Bear with I have about 2 chapters I am working on right now & should have them up soon to give more to this world, but as those who follow my other stories know I am slow to update. BUT I will ALWAYS update unless they are 1 offs. (this story is not!)

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own PLL, San Junipero, Black Mirror or the Characters (minus the new ones I introduce) only the words I choose to write about them

 **Stories from San Junipero** :  
Chapter 1 -Paige's encounter

In 1987 at Tuckers Club. Smooth Operator by Sade plays as the club doors open.

 _"Diamond life, lover boy. He moves in space with minimum waste and maximum joy City lights and business nights. When you require streetcar desire for higher heights. No place for beginners or sensitive hearts. When sentiment is left to chance. No place to be ending but somewhere to start. No need to ask he's a_ _…"_

People were dancing slow and sexy on the floor, the bar tenders were busy pouring drinks seemingly in time with the music. Paige was on the edge of the dance floor with her pink and blue plaid house dress on with a white thick belt and gold buckle barely fanning herself with a wooden Chinese fan, sipping a Sea Breeze and scanning the crowd. Her eyes went over all the dancers, the hunky hot blonde male bar tender & the casually aloof but dependable black & lace clad waitresses. She spotted her friends in their regular booth and bee lined to them flopping down next to Mika with a, "Ugh here you are, didn't quite see you through the fog of smoke. Man I forgot what it was like to be in a club with smoke, it's sort of gross good thing it is odorless." Clarke and Julian agree but Mika lights up saying, "It's my one vice guys," as she also takes a big gup of her Kamikaze. "Right! Your one vice…" Paige says and they all laugh raising a toast and downing their drinks and asking for more from a nearby waitress who nods with her lacey fingers jotting down the orders. Everyone watches the crowd as they wait for their drinks.

When they came Julian says, "What's the plan for tonight? Are we drinking or dancing?" The other two murmur took deep slips from their drinks and give no definite answer until Paige stood up fan waving at the non-existent heat and says, "Well I'm gonna DANCE! Who's joining me?" And before anyone can answer she drained her drink and ran out onto the dance floor to shake her thang! Julian and Mika joined her and they started to dance to Madonna singing "Get into the Groove you've got to prove your love to me". Paige grabbed people next to them to join in the pre-vogue era club dancing everyone here seemed to know instinctively dancing hard for hours. As the night wore on Mika and Julian left of course heading to Julian's house to while away the remaining hours of the night together and Clarke predictively headed for the Quagmire with a tattooed punk friend of hers Nessa. They stopped on the dance floor and asked Paige if she was interested in going but Paige was totally focused on the music and dancing so they left her on the dance floor walking like an Egyptian with the other permanent residents and tourists of San Junipero. But soon a slow tune comes on and Paige walks off the floor back to her regular booth as Madonna sings, "Swaying room as the music starts, strangers making the most of the dark. Two by two their bodies become one." She looks at all the people at Tuckers just there to hook up or hang out and she feels her old loneliness for the 1st time here in San Junipero.

She grabbed her bag and walked out towards the front door she thought that maybe she'd go down to the boulevard on the beach. As she is exits 4 girls are entering & Paige bumps into a tall dark haired girl with smooth light brown skin nearly knocking her down. They exchange "I'm sorrys" & "Excuse mes" but they also locked eyes and the girl smiled wide while her friends shouted, "Hey watch it!" & "Are you ok Emily?" The girl slid past Paige as the 4 went into the club, but Paige noticed that the girl lingered a bit keeping eye contact. After the door closed Paige stopped and thought she then looked at her Swatch watch with Edgar Allen Poe's face on it showing 10 mins till midnight. She turned around and went back in to scan the club for the girl, Emily she knew her name even before her friend said it. She saw her near the edge of the bar, her friends were ordering drinks & Paige closed the distance between them in no time. She tapped her lightly on the shoulder to get her to turn around. Emily turned with a bit of shock on her face that then softened when she saw it was Paige.

"Hi, do you remember me? I mean not from just before at the door, but from like before, before. Like before San Junipero?" Paige said as Emily's friends arrived with her drink, a Sea Breeze Paige noticed in hand. "I um…" Emily started as Hannah interrupted her, "Here you go Em," then she noticed Paige. "Wait you again, what do you want? You nearly ran Emily over earlier?" Paige started to shrink away as Aria & Spencer came up to as well. Again Emily started to talk but Prince's "U Got the Look" started to blast from the speakers & the other girls shouted & ran to the dance floor grabbing Emily who looked back with apologetic eyes to Paige who watched as the group danced until the clock hit 12:00am.

She woke up in her room at the Center looking out the window watching the rain fall down in Seattle on a cold Sunday morning.


	2. Chapter 2point0

**Author's Note:**  
Hello this story came about due to my extreme love and fascination with the Black Mirror episode of San Junipero and PLL characters and Paige McCullers in general. It may seem like you are starting in the middle of something and to an extent you are. I have plans to add much more to this story to fill in the gaps BUT the premise for this is that Paige and the Liars are in San Junipero and those of you who know what that is will understand there are certain implications with that. I won't go into those details here, but please know that I am doing a certain amount of world building as the 1hr episode didn't elaborate on details needed to write a fully realized world. I have questions like: Are there other towns like San Junipero? Can inhabitants move from town to town? Do they have control over what they are wearing, look like and feel (ala pain sliders from the episode) OR is that all preset in the outside world? And more that I hope to answer for myself and maybe add onto via this story. BUT I am also mixing the world of PLL and the Liar's story. So for the purpose of this I will say that everything before the Flash Forward has taken place & maybe a bit more hinted at or suggested in the flash forward BUT this takes place as if we haven't done the flash forward and clearly due to the nature of the San Junipero storyline in the future. There may be mature content and murders in later chapters. This is of course an AU.

Sadly, I don't think Kelly and Yorkie (whom I ADORE and sort of wanna pair her with Paige in a one off) will be making an appearance though we might mention them or see them in the back ground.

 **Writing & Updating Note:**  
Bear with I have about 2 chapters I am working on right now & should have them up soon to give more to this world, but as those who follow my other stories know I am slow to update. BUT I will ALWAYS update unless they are 1 offs. (this story is not!)

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own PLL, San Junipero, Black Mirror or the Characters (minus the new ones I introduce) only the words I choose to write about them

 **Stories from San Junipero** :  
Chapter 2.0 -1 Week Later

The whole week was a bit of a blur because Paige spent it in a daze thinking about the girl she saw in San Junipero. It couldn't be the same Emily could it? She just didn't know and couldn't really remember it was like a fog was in her brain when it came to thinking about the past. She remembered Rosewood, growing up, swimming, the city square, her parents, coming out, but people, people were fuzzy. Friend's names, teacher's names, the name of the local coffee shop all of it seemed to be drawn in silhouettes or blank in her mind. But when she saw Emily it was like a switch was flicked on and she knew who she was. It was a sharp and acute feeling of knowing her, more extreme than déjà vu but not as strong as an actual solid memory. During this week as Paige thought about Emily she started to remember more and more. It didn't come like an the Info Dumps, like how it is when she is uploaded to the system during her allotment hours, but rather like a slow trickle of details, half forgotten and half remembered. The more she thought about all of it the more there was to think about; the girl she met had to be Emily Fields. Paige knew it and she had this feeling that Emily looked older than the last time she saw her in the "real world". She wasn't high school aged anymore, she was closer to College age or a few years after. She guessed 23 or 24.

Paige had "fixed" herself in San Junipero at 29, but was thinking about going a bit younger as most people there seemed to be around 20 to 25 & all of them were in good health, like almost too much so. No one bothered with their real life disabilities they all presented a perfect picture of youth and health. Paige knew some older people in their 40s here but they were permanent residents who had been uploaded to the system before the "Mind Upgrade" aka "MUG" was available. Which meant the conception interface and personality configuration wasn't working at the same levels that the current tourists or the new permanent residents have. Everyone now has a full mind uploads not just composite mind & technological uploads that tended to leave personality gaps. The tech is now 99.999% accurate to "reality" and permanent residents are actually 101%. That extra percent is an unknown quantity that happens during upload. The techs call it a glitch but the marking teams for TCKR and the companies like them call it the "Spirit Percent" adding some sort mysticism and spirituality element to the product they are selling to the faithful. This is all in the literature that they give you before they fit you for your upload pods and Paige had read it all through thoroughly before uploading just to be sure of what she was getting herself into.

Paige realized after her 1st few weeks of coming to San Junipero that she was getting pretty good at gauging the "fixed" age of people here & their "real" age in "reality" She also felt like she could tell the differences between the permanent residents from the tourists like herself. From her brief interactions with Emily she thought age wise she was in line with the standard of "fixing" here in San Junipero and so were her friends. They were all "fixed" young but not too young but she had no idea what their "real" ages could have been from their brief encounter. They all looked healthy no illness or physical deformities, & they conformed to the era they were in. All of them dressed and were very committed to the 80's look which was again part of the appeal of the San Junipero program with its many decades to choose from and laid back vacation party town feel. There were of course other programs that TCKR offered that were "life like" simulations or "hyper reality" or you could go to the "extreme zones" for a more surreal experience, but for Paige she wanted the vacation life and the "glory of her youth" back as her therapist called it. Paige's therapist had thought it would help her with the depression of her current physical situation and be great in treating her declining health. Though Paige was sure he and the other doctors who prescribed, "Generational Immersion Reality Therapy", got kickbacks from companies like TCKR she did really like the experience and it did seem to help even if they were only allowed to stay there for 5-hour time blocks.

She was strongly considering uploading permanently when it was her time, but she didn't wanna think about that so she drew her mind back to Emily and her compainions. Paige started to remember more about them, in particular she was thinking about the long brown haired girl with glasses mostly because no one wore glasses in San Junipero. Well except Kelly's wife, but that was just Yorkie's personality, a holdover from when she was alive. But this friend of Emily's had on clunky Sally Jesse Rafael glasses black and unmissable and it made Paige remember her from before, like maybe from when they were in school together? She wasn't sure but she had this image of this girl with glasses on with a white headband and a tennis outfit… And then Paige pulled her name from the air, "Spencer Hastings". As she said it out loud she knew it was right then followed it up by naming the other two girls Hanna Marin & Aria Montgomery immediately after. She was sure now of who they were and that they had all gone to school together in Rosewood 54 years ago, and that she had just seen them with Emily Fields in San Junipero. "But how?" because she realized three things while thinking and remembering the four girl's names.

1\. That she, Paige had been in love with Emily and the other girls didn't approve for some reason she couldn't get at in her mind.

2\. That all four of the girls she saw in San Junipero including & especially Emily had died when they were 18 years old. &

3\. That they had died 10 years before the TCKR company or any other company had started the "After Life" programs for tourists and permanent residents.

She had been talking to proper ghosts.


End file.
